Monday, June 23, 2014

Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Adoption, and How to Count Your Children

We are adding another little one to our family. I was fairly cautious about putting this out on public media until I realized I had miscalculated our trimester dates, and that we were already out of the first trimester. I also waited until my most recent midwife appointment, when we again heard the baby's heartbeat.

We are joyous about this new life. He or she will make their appearance around the 1st of the year.
We're very thrilled. I cannot wait to see the boys embrace brotherhood once again.

But we're also sad.
It's so difficult to describe.

If I could change one insensitive thing I've ever done, I would have learned this: pregnancy does not automatically "fix" the pain of a miscarriage. There are some women I know that got pregnant after miscarriage. And until I experienced this, I just kind of went on thinking "Oh, yay for them! Now they get the baby they wanted." But that's not how it worked. Both babies were/are wanted. And one is separated from their mommy and daddy forever.

I read recently a statement that said that babies who were miscarried have two "birthdays" for families to remember. The first is their original due date, and the second is the date of their departure. We're getting closer to our original due date, and I don't know how I'm going to handle that---if it will be a Big Deal or not so big of a deal. The date of our baby's departure will be three weeks after this baby will be born, so I might still be in the throes of postpartum hormones, and it might become a very BIG DEAL. I just don't know. Or I might be so sleep-deprived that I won't even know it passed.

The other thing that makes me sad is not knowing how to count my children when people ask me how many kids I have. I only have two at home. But I have one in heaven. And I have one in the womb. And one somewhere in adoption-maybe-not-born-yet-we-really-don't-know land. So do we count the one in my womb and not the one in adoption-land? Do we leave out the miscarriage entirely? The general public around me will acknowledge my pregnancy but not our current adoption process or my miscarriage, but that feels so stilted to me.

So this is a sad post.
But a happy post too.
Because baby number whatever is hopefully going to come our way in January.